Odyssey Papers 6 - Odyssey Marine Exploration

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Odyssey Papers 6
The Shipwreck of the SS Republic (1865).
Experimental Deep-Sea Archaeology.
Part 2: Cargo.
Neil Cunningham Dobson & Ellen Gerth
Odyssey Marine Exploration, Tampa, USA
Between October 2003 and February 2005 Odyssey Marine Exploration surveyed and conducted an extensive excavation on the
shipwreck of the 19th-century sidewheel steamer the SS Republic at a depth of approximately 500m in the Atlantic Ocean, over
150km off the southeastern coast of the United States. The Republic was en route from New York to New Orleans with passengers
and a composite commercial and monetary cargo when she foundered during a hurricane on 25 October 1865.
Some 262 ROV dives took place on the Republic, accumulating approximately 3,500 hours of bottom time on the seabed.
16,000 digital still photographs were taken and over 3,000 hours of video footage recorded. During the archaeological excavation
14,414 artifacts and 51,404 coins were recovered, recorded and conserved. These assemblages have produced a unique image of daily
life in post-Civil War America, unparalleled in scale and diversity on any wreck of a steamship.
© Odyssey Marine Exploration, 2009
1. Economic Background
The shipwreck of the steamship Republic was laden with
an extensive and diverse collection of cultural assemblages,
which, beyond the coin cargo (Bowers, 2009), were not documented in historical records of the vessel’s final voyage. The
gold and silver coins, minted in Philadelphia, New Orleans
and San Francisco, and dating from the late 1830s to 1865,
are believed to represent the largest collection of Civil Warera coins discovered on a shipwreck, including pristine and
uncirculated examples (Figs. 4-5). Of greater archaeological
importance is the plethora of trade goods, essential to daily
life and commerce in mid-Victorian America (Fig. 1). The
arrival in New Orleans of an assortment of bottled goods
(patent medicines, inks, pickled foods, hair tonics and tooth
powders), accompanied by leather footwear, hardware, and
ironstone china, would have been vital to help kick-start
the city’s depressed economy.
Without a cargo manifest or related documentary
evidence, the intended recipients of the Republic’s cargo
will never be known. Yet the historical context in which
these goods circulated can be partly reconstructed by
an examination of New Orleans’ post-bellum economic
climate in tandem with other socio-cultural, health and
demographic factors.
In the decades preceding the American Civil War the
growing world demand for cotton led to the development
of vast slave plantations in the lower Mississippi Valley.
New Orleans served as the central hub from where cotton
was largely shipped either directly to Liverpool and other
British ports or was trans-shipped through New York. During the 1850s the annual shipment of cotton to England
rose from 582,723 bales to 1,426,966 bales, representing
well over one-half of New Orleans’ total exports. In the
same period, French consumption also more than doubled
from 125,067 to 303,157 bales. In addition to Liverpool
and Le Havre, there was also a significant increase in cotton
shipments to Bremen, Genoa and Trieste to serve the growing textile industries of the German states and northern
Italy (Reinders, 1998: 37).
The cogs in this trade spine explain the preponderance
of British products amongst the Republic’s ceramic and
stoneware and glass bottle cargo: no outgoing merchant
vessel would return from Britain via other ports without a
profitable consignment. By 1860-61, cotton exports from
New Orleans had peaked at a total of over 2.2 million
bales per annum, valued at $110 million. Sugar and tobacco shipments followed as distant secondary commodities, while foodstuffs comprised the remaining bulk exports
(McNabb and Madère, 2003; Reinders, 1998: 40-1). New
Orleans was now the second largest commercial center in
the United States behind New York and the most important cotton market in the world (Reinders, 1998: 37; Vandal, 2000: 18).
Because of its specialization in marketing agricultural
© Odyssey Marine Exploration, 2009; www.shipwreck.net
Odyssey Marine Exploration Papers 6 (2009)
Fig. 1. Distribution of recovered cargo wares from the wreck of the Republic.
commodities, New Orleans in effect never developed into
a major manufacturing center. In 1860, the city was ranked
sixth in the nation in terms of population size, yet only
seventeenth in value of its manufacturing productivity. While some light manufacturing had emerged by the
1850s, it was largely small-scale private enterprise, assorted
industry and crafts of minor importance. The average New
Orleans industry operated with limited capital and only
employed a few workers (Reinders, 1998: 45-46). Most of
these businesses did not survive the Civil War. Imported
goods were abundant, inexpensive and readily available
to large-scale retail merchants in New Orleans (McNabb
and Madère, 2003; Stout, 2007: 4). Wholesale and import
merchants also supplied smaller urban retailers, country
shopkeepers, planters and individual peddlers. Many vendors were African American women who conducted trade
in the streets, a traditional practice introduced from the
African homeland.1
New Orleans’ reliance on highly specialized cotton
exports and imported goods, propelled by a competitive
and prosperous mercantile class, was its Achilles heel. The
importance of the city’s port, and Louisiana’s strategic
position on the Mississippi, made it an early Union
target during the Civil War and blockades seriously disrupted the city’s trade, the welfare of her merchants and her
blue-collar workers. Without the constant flow of goods,
New Orleans could not function (McNabb and Madère,
2003; Stout, 2007: 4). The city’s resources were further diminished with the imminent approach of the Union fleet in
April 1862. With the enemy in sight, the Confederate army
Fig. 2. Reconstruction of the sidewheel steamer
Republic based on a painting of the SS Tennessee in
the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts.
Painting: by John Batchelor.
seized control of New Orleans and systematically destroyed
the city’s material wealth. Stores of cotton and tobacco were
burnt. Railroads and steamships spirited away Confederate
troops, documents and military supplies. The city’s banks
dispatched $6 million in gold specie out of town for safety
(Capers, 1965: 155; Stout, 2007: 8).
In the aftermath of the Civil War, New Orleans was
demoralized and impoverished. Unemployment, endemic even during times of relative prosperity, reached new
heights after the war as the city was struck by a crippling
economic depression. The recovery problems common to the
entire South were greatly exacerbated by the city’s unusually
large population of urban dwellers. The challenges of
Fig. 3. Photomosaic displaying survey/excavation areas and the locations of prominent archaeological contexts.
Fig. 4. Gold coins in situ in the stern area of the wreck of the Republic.
Fig. 5. Silver coins in situ inside a decomposed wooden shipping keg in the stern area of the wreck.
Fig. 6. Bolts of cloth in situ in the bows of the wreck (Area A) alongside scattered coal and glass bottles in the background.
Fig. 7. Leather shoes in situ in the debris field (Area D).
Fig. 8. Glass champagne-style, whiskey and glass bitters bottles in situ in Area E.
Fig. 9. Glass whiskey and bitters bottles in situ in Area E.
Fig. 10. Glass champagne-style, mustard barrel, bitters and cathedral-patterned pickle bottles
between frames and cargo hold bulkheads in Area E, some still stacked in their
original rows after their packing crates had completely deteriorated.
Fig. 11. The coal pile in Area A intermixed with J.B. Thorn/John Tarrant ceramic medicine
pots and lids, Holloway’s Ointment pots, and glass patent medicine bottles.
Fig. 12. Assorted ironstone china in situ in Area D.
Fig. 13. Ironstone china footbaths, slop jars, tooth brush containers, and cups and saucers in situ in Area D.
Fig. 14. Ironstone china cargo in situ in Area D, consisting of footbaths, slop jars,
stacked wash basins and demitasse cups and saucers.
Fig. 15. Detail of the ironstone china cargo in Area D, including footbaths, slop jars and demitasse cups and saucers in situ.
Fig. 16. Welsh writing slates still stacked in the Area D debris field,
even though their original wooden shipping crates are entirely deteriorated.
Fig. 17. A cargo of porcelain and glass religious figural candlesticks
in situ in Area B; its packing crate is not preserved.
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Fig. 18. A copper-alloy telescope in situ in the debris field (Area D). Found near glass lenses and a brass
barometer, it seems to have been part of a consignment of nautical instruments.
Fig. 19. Rectangular metal lining ingots in situ in the engine room (Area C). The ingots were intended to be
melted down and poured into a bearing mold or tray to produce sheet metal for placement over the surface
of the engine’s moving parts to prevent wear and damage. Each is stamped S. Whites and J. W. Quincy of New York.
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Fig. 20. A glass crucifix candlestick in Area B being transferred into a recovery
basket by the ROV Zeus’ limpet suction system.
Fig. 21. A glass bottle containing preserved gooseberries being recovered by the ROV Zeus’ limpet suction system.
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Fig. 22. A milk glass base of a ruby-colored glass oil lamp font being recovered by the ROV Zeus’ limpet suction system.
Fig. 23. A J.B. Thorn of London’s ceramic medicine pot being recovered by the ROV Zeus’ limpet suction system.
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Fig. 24. A glass bottle containing preserved peaches being transferred to a recovery
basket using the ROV Zeus’ limpet suction system.
Fig. 25. An umbrella inkstand being recovered by the ROV Zeus’ limpet suction system.
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overpopulation were further intensified by the migration
of thousands of former slaves who had abandoned the
plantations and flocked to the city during the war and
after emancipation in 1863. New Orleans’ black population more than doubled from 24,500 in 1860 to 50,450 in
1870 (Stout, 2007: 2; Vandal, 2000: 18-19).
Nonetheless, New Orleans was virtually the only
major city of the Confederacy to emerge from war without
near-total destruction. It remained a gateway for economic
traffic into the deprived South, as well as an established
entrepôt for trade south of America’s borders. It is within
this socio-economic context of deprivation and yearning demand that the abundance of essentially utilitarian
commodities onboard the Republic was shipped to market
with great expectations.
2. Coins
When she foundered, the SS Republic was transporting an
extensive consignment of coins (Charleston Daily Courier,
30 and 31 October, 11 November 1865). The excavation
of her shipwreck yielded 51,404 coins in total: 4,135 gold
and 47,263 silver issues, as well as four British florins and
two silver 25 cents (Figs. 4-5). The specie consisted of
2,675 gold $20 double eagles and 1,460 $10 gold eagles,
but mostly 47,263 silver half dollars. The latter included
some coins of the Capped Bust design, but Liberty Seated coins predominated: an artistic innovation of engraver
Christian Gobrecht that portrayed Lady Liberty seated on
a rock, one hand holding a shield and the other a pole surmounted by a liberty cap, a symbol of freedom. The scene
is surrounded by 13 stars, with the date below. The reverse
displays a perched eagle, wings downward, holding an olive
branch and three arrows (Bowers, 2005: 262).
A detailed presentation of the Republic’s coin mints
and a functional interpretation is presented elsewhere
(Bowers, 2009).
3. Glass & Stoneware Bottles
Some 58% of the artifacts recovered from the Republic
comprised 8,429 glass and stoneware bottles, once stored
in the ship’s aft and forward cargo holds (Figs. 2-3, 8-11).
These include an intriguing collection of medicinal ‘cures’
(2,672; 31.7% of the total), ink bottles and stands (2,447;
29.0%), food products (1,522; 18.0%), beauty products
(958; 11.4%) and alcoholic beverages (830; 9.8%).
The combined volume and variety of bottled goods
seems to represent the largest and possibly most diverse
collection ever recovered from any shipwreck site. Their
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subsequent study and analysis has provided a rare insight into prevailing social and economic conditions in
New Orleans following the American Civil War. The
assemblage simultaneously permits a broader interpretation of the country’s socio-economic climate in an era when
the North served as the major manufacturer and supplier
of goods being shipped southwards and when the United
States, as a whole, relied on an influx of British imports
and, to some extent, products from Continental Europe.
Significantly, the study of the Republic bottle assemblage
has also divulged new information relating to the business
histories of the companies that both used the containers
and supplied their contents.
The collection reflects a transitional period in the
development of glassmaking, the start of which had been
underway for several decades (McKearin and Wilson, 1978:
13-14; Switzer, 1974: 5). The eclectic mix of technologies
(such as the use of the pontil rod versus snap case) and
other production features evidenced in the bottle collection
represent a unique record documenting the variable pace
at which improvements and innovations were taking hold
in American glass factories. This new body of information
contributes significantly to an important chapter in the
commercial glass- and bottle-making industry in America.
A. Patent Medicines
A sample of 2,672 patent medicines and other medicinal
bottles was recovered from the wreck of the Republic (31.7%
of the total bottle assemblage). The dubious contents of the
patent medicines and other medicinal bottles derived from
recipes that often contained harmful narcotics laced with
alcohol and other undisclosed ingredients (Gerth, 2006: 2340). Proclaiming outrageous medical results, these dangerous compounds promised to treat everything from coughs
and fevers to digestive ailments, constipation and nervous
excitement. Even cancer and diabetes were within their advertised curative powers (Fike, 1987: 3; Gerth, 2006: 23).
Embossed names of remedies on bottles include Dr.
McMunn’s Elixir of Opium (Fig. 26), Mrs. Winslow’s
Soothing Syrup (Fig. 27) and H.T. Helmbold’s Genuine
Fluid Extracts. Most of these patent medicine proprietors
lacked a valid medical license, yet could sell their proprietary
products without prescription and without disclosing their
contents (Fike, 1987: 3-4). While the medical profession
and consumers had complained about the ‘quack’ medicine
trade well before the turn of the century, it was not until
the enactment of the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 that
more stringent steps were taken to curtail the manufacture,
false claims and sale of these often fatal nostrums (Davoli,
1998: 5; Fike, 1987: 3-4; Young, 1961: 239-40, 244; pers.
comm. Byron Dille’, June 2009).
Many of the ingredients used in patent medicines
were grown in the South, yet there were very few southern
patent medicine manufacturers. In fact, the year 1865 was
not yet over before a Charleston druggist was shipping
north the roots of Southern plants for use in J.C. Ayer’s
medicinal products (Young, 1961: 98). James Cook Ayer
was a qualified doctor – a rarity among patent medicine
manufacturers – who began to create his own line of
patent medicines in the 1840s (Davoli, 1998: 3; Fadely,
1992). His Lowell Massachusetts patent medicine business
produced ‘remedies’ such as Ayer’s Cherry Pectoral and
Ayer’s Cathartic Pills, both of which were recovered from
the shipwreck (Figs. 28-29). A few samples of the latter,
packaged in small rectangular glass bottles, still contain
their original pea-sized pills. By the time Ayer retired in the
early 1870s, he had acquired a vast fortune from his patent
medicine business. At his death in 1878, he was considered the wealthiest manufacturer of patent medicines in the
country (Gerth, 2006: 30; New York Times, 4 July 1878).
While the preponderance of 19th-century patent medicines largely comprised bottled products, many of the ‘remedies’ were also sold in ceramic containers, including two
types recovered from the Republic. The excavation yielded
71 small ‘Holloway’s Ointment’ pots without lids (Figs.
11, 30), advertised at the time as being “for the Cure of
Inveterate Ulcers, Bad Legs, Sore Breasts and Sore heads”
as well as “Gout and Rheumatism”. Thomas Holloway
of England amassed a fortune selling his ointment and
other medicinal products, later investing some of his
wealth in establishing Royal Holloway College for
Women, an architectural marvel that is today a part of the
University of London. The 71 lidless Holloway specimens
recovered may have been sealed with wax or wax paper,
the remains of which have not survived.
Also recovered from the site in even larger quantities were ceramic medicine pots with accompanying lids,
the bottom of each pot bearing the name of J.B. Thorn,
London Chemist, and John A. Tarrant, New York, Sole
Agent for the United States (Figs. 11, 23, 31). A number
of such patent medicines used in the United States were
thus British imports sold by US wholesale druggists such as
Tarrant & Co., operative from 1859 to 1906 (Fike, 1987:
49-49). As noted in contemporary mid-19th century
advertisements, Thorn’s Compound Extract of Copaiba
and Sarsaparilla was taken for the “cure of the afflicted…
sanctioned by the faculty of medicine and recommended
by the most eminent in the profession” (Boston Directory,
1 July 1856: 31). Later declared false and fraudulent under
the 1906 Food and Drugs Act, the product was sold as a
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remedy for venereal disease (gonorrhoea) and kidney infections (Cramps, 1921: 624).
Most American patent medicine manufacturers were
located in Northern cities, including New York, Boston
and Philadelphia. Before the Civil War, patent medicines
had a total annual sale of $3.5 million. By the turn of the
century, the total patent medicine business had escalated
dramatically to $75 million (Fox, 1997: 16). As late as
1896, 10,000 people were engaged in the patent medicine
manufactories of the United States, receiving collectively
over $4 million a year in salaries and wages. New York City
stood at the head of this industry with over 85 factories,
employing a thousand people (Shrady, 1896: 939-40).
Throughout the Civil War, Northern patent medicine
manufacturers remained enormously successful, supplying a sundry of remedies to the Union troops, preying on
their fears of southern tropical afflictions and, in particular,
water-borne dysenteric ailments. Official medical records
of the time confirm that bowel complaints were most prevalent among the Union troops and caused the most deaths
(Young, 1861: 95). To alleviate these digestive disorders
troops took a variety of ‘medicinal’ bitters: herbal brews
steeped in alcohol. One popular brand shipped on board
the Republic was Dr. J. Hostetter’s Stomach Bitters (93
green and amber bottles), first introduced to the market
in 1853 (Fig. 32). Fortified by up to 47% alcohol, advertisements directed towards army consumption claimed that
the bitters provided “a positive protection against the fatal
maladies of the Southern swamps, and the poisonous
tendency of the impure rivers and bayous”. The Hostetter marketing campaign proved so successful that the War
Department authorized the distribution of Hostetter’s
Stomach Bitters to the Union Army (Baxter, 1997: 1-2;
Davoli, 1998: 4; Fike, 1987: 36; Young, 1961: 95, 129).
A major concern for the military was cholera, a lethal
bacterial disease borne largely through contaminated water
supplies and designated America’s greatest scourge after its
widespread ravages in 1849 in New York and New Orleans, spreading ultimately across the entire country into
Canada. Cholera once again reached New Orleans in 1865
and broke out into an epidemic the following year. While
contemporary eruptions in other cities were often mild
and short-lived, New Orleans suffered greatly and repeatedly until 1868 (Dhiman et al., 1997: 13).
Union soldiers especially feared yellow fever (Roberts,
2003: 139). While the fever’s mosquito-bred, nautical
origins and method of transmission remained a mystery
at the time, the virus was known to flourish in southern
sub-tropical and swampy environments. Throughout the
1860s, Western medicine had contended with its outbreaks. New Orleans, in particular, was no stranger to the
disease. Between 1817 and 1905, the year of the city’s last
epidemic, more than 41,000 people died from yellow fever
(Stout, 2007: 39-40; Young, 1961: 98).2
No doubt, Hostetter’s and similar ‘antidotes’ provided
bottled courage to frightened men in times of need (Baxter,
1997: 2). Veterans returned home addicted to bitters and
other ‘medicinals’ that they believed had prevented these
illnesses during the war, spurious remedies which they
then passionately advocated to their families and friends
(Davoli, 1998: 4; Young, 1961: 97). In fact, Hostetter’s
Bitters, known as the ‘Soldier’s Safeguard’, was so successful that after the war shots of it were sold in local bars and
saloons (Davoli, 1998: 4; Young, 1961: 95, 130).
Not surprisingly, a wave of medicinal bitters flooded
the mid-19th century market, each competing for a share
of this multi-million dollar business. Especially appealing
was their tax-exempt status. Sold as a medicinal product
with ‘healing’ roots and herbs, these high alcohol ‘remedies’ were not subject to the taxes levied on the sale of all
liquors to help finance the Union War effort (Gerth, 2006:
44; pers. comm. Byron Dille’, June 2009). Drake’s Plantation Bitters was among the more successful brands (Fig.
33). Over 150 bottles were recovered from the Republic in
varying shades of light and dark amber and a distinctive
olive-yellow hue. The famous recipe, touting a potent 38%
alcohol, was made from Caribbean St. Croix rum and sold
in a unique log cabin-style bottle accompanied by claims
that it cured virtually every disease known to mankind
(Fike, 1987: 33; Harpers, 1 August, 1863; P.H. Drake &
Co’s Gratuitous Medical Annual, 1871-1872).
Unsanitary conditions in Army field hospitals, and
the many deaths that resulted from dysentery and other
diseases, contributed to a prevailing lack of confidence
in doctors. Thousands of soldiers returned to civilian life
inflicted with ruined digestions, malaria, wounds, emotional trauma and other psychological and physical ailments
that troubled them for the rest of their lives. While wartime
deprivations and crippling illnesses had undermined health
on the home front, conditions at home were often equally
harsh. Pervasive poverty and an inadequate diet contributed to the host of diseases that attacked weakened immune
systems (Davoli, 1998: 4; Stout, 2007: 39-40; Young, 1961:
98). The post-war South thus offered a perfect market for
patent medicines.
B. Ink Products
Close in quantity to the glass medicine bottles are inkstands and master ink bottles recovered from the wreck of
the Republic (2,447 containers; 29.0% of the total), both of
stoneware (96 bottles and 1,376 ink pots) and glass (171
bottles and 804 inkstands), some with their corks still intact
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and retaining their original writing fluid. The majority of
the differently shaped and shaded glass examples (Fig. 36)
were produced in glassworks operating in New England,
the Midwest and Middle Atlantic, the three glass-blowing
regions of the United States (McKearin, 1978: 68, 269).
The glass inkstands from the Republic (Figs. 34-35)
take the form of an assortment of conical and square
‘schoolhouse’ or ‘cottage-style’ bottles, but the majority are
umbrella inkstands in varying shades of green and aquamarine (493 examples). While none of the glass specimens
retain their paper labels, a handful still contain remains of
their original writing fluid. A few of the square versions
are embossed with company names, including a number
bearing the name Guyot, an ink-making enterprise with
its roots in 17th-century France (Fig. 34). Its founder, a
French chemist, is often referred to as the ‘father’ of the
modern ink industry (Carvalho, 2008: 86).
Some of the umbrella inkstands are embossed on the
base with the letters NY. Research suggests that a New York
ink maker may have custom-ordered these inkstands from
a glassmaking firm and sold his own company product
inside them (pers. comm. Bill Lindsey, March 2009).
The Republic’s cargo of umbrella inkstands, also known as
pyramid ink bottles (Figs. 25, 35), were common throughout New Jersey glasshouses and were also produced by the
Stoddard glasshouses of New Hampshire, as well as by most
other glass manufacturers of the era (McKearin, 1978: 269;
pers. comm. Byron Dille’, June 2009).
The preponderance of ink containers on board the
Republic, totalling 1,376, are plain and sturdy British-made
stoneware pots (H. 22.0cm) mass-produced for the American market (Fig. 37). Added to the stoneware assortment
are 96 brownish-orange salt-glazed master ink bottles in
three distinct sizes (height variations: 17-18cm, 21-22cm
and 25-26cm; Figs. 38-39), products of Britain’s J. Bourne
& Son’s Denby and Codnor Park Potteries and identified by the company stamp near the base (Cambell, 2006:
137).3 A further 16 unmarked large stoneware bottles are
likely products of a separate British pottery and also probably contained ink, medicine or chemicals often stored in
bulk quantity (Fig. 40).
The stoneware master ink bottles, designed for storing
bulk ink to refill smaller inkstands and inkwells used in
offices and schools, also carry the name of the London
company P. & J. Arnold (Fig. 39). In its heyday, Pichard
and John Arnold’s early 19th-century firm manufactured
over 30 varieties of ink (Carvalho, 2008: 180). By the
middle of the century, their chemical writing fluid was
widely imported into the United States in Bourne’s stoneware bottles and had become a competitive threat to the
domestic market (Odell, 2003).
The abundance of ink containers shipped aboard the
Republic evokes both curiosity and speculation as to their
purpose and use. Developments in New Orleans point to
some plausible explanations. It has been suggested that the
ink shipped to New Orleans, in tandem with the arrival
of Yankee investors seeking economic opportunities, would
have been essential for drawing up legal contracts conveying the purchase and transfer of cheap land and other
commodities (pers. comm. Bill Lindsey, May, 2009).
More broadly, ink was the lifeblood of government,
business, education and daily life. A very large military
establishment that consumed paper and ink like a furnace was based in New Orleans. Conceivably, the writing
containers were intended for use in New Orleans’ schools:
public, private and parochial alike. In 1863, General
Nathanial Banks also authorized the establishment of black
schools, which were partly supported by organizations such
as the National Freedman’s Relief Association that invested
thousands of dollars on books, clothing and supplies from
1865-66 (Blassingame, 1973: 109-110). Finally, New
Orleans was of course also a port from which commodities
were trans-shipped to further destinations.
C. Food Products
Numbering 1,522 examples, bottles containing food
products are the third largest category recovered from the
shipwreck of the Republic (18.0% of the total), including a
variety of pickled goods, sauces and preserved fruit. Most
were retrieved empty, but a few examples still contained
their original 19th-century contents: well-preserved chunks
of pineapple and rhubarb, sliced peaches, blueberries and
gooseberries (Figs. 21, 24, 41-43). Some 288 of the food
bottles are of the ornately embossed Cathedral pickle and
pepper sauce type (Figs. 44-45). Three of the latter still
contain perfectly preserved red and yellow peppers. Cathedral-patterned bottles designed to emulate ornate church
windows and arches were an American invention produced
in hundreds of similar designs. Used by companies such
as W.D. Smith, William Underwood and W.K. Lewis, the
food products stored in these ornate bottles were intended to compete effectively with similar imported English
products sold in plainer bottles.4
Of the many British food products competing with
American goods, Lea & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce is best
known (Fig. 46). Launched commercially in 1838, within
a few years it was imported extensively into the United
States by John Duncan’s Sons, New York. By 1849 it was
consumed west of the Mississippi as thousands of gold
seekers made their way to the California gold fields. This
popular condiment soon found a receptive market in
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restaurants, hotel dining rooms and in the dining salons
of passenger ships (Zumwalt, 1980: 269).
The large volume of Lea & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce
bottles recovered from the wreck of the Republic, however,
indicates that they were not all intended for passenger
consumption, but were probably being shipped as cargo.
Of the 285 bottles retrieved, 207 still retained their original glass-and-cork stoppers. All of the bottles are of British
manufacture. Lea & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce was not
actually bottled in the United States until 1877, when John
Duncan had his company initials ‘JDS’ embossed on bases
by Salem Glass Works. At this time, there was a marked
changeover in the United States from British to Americanproduced Lea and Perrins bottles (pers. comm. Bill Lindsey, June 2009; Lunn, 1985: 1-2; Zumwalt, 1980: 269).
D. Beauty Products
The glass bottle assemblage also incorporates beauty
products (958; 11.4%), many of which were associated
with fashionable fragrances manufactured by American
and European perfumers. Included in this category are
approximately seven bottles that once contained Murray
& Lanman’s Florida Water (Fig. 47), the most popular
product sold by Lanman & Kemp, a leading New York
City wholesale druggist firm founded by Robert J. Murray
in 1808. Touted as a multi-purpose toilet water with both
cosmetic and restorative qualities, company advertising
proclaimed the product was associated with the Spanish explorer Ponce de León and his legendary search for Florida’s
Fountain of Youth in 1513.
Of particular interest is the pervasive role of Lanman &
Kemp in the 19th-century wholesale drug trade throughout
the United States and worldwide, with major operations in
Central and South America and in the Caribbean Islands,
supported by travelling agents. Product orders were also
sent through the maritime mail. Lanman & Kemp records
document business correspondence addressed to the company dating to 1859 and 1861 that was shipped aboard the
SS Tennessee from Vera Cruz in Mexico to New Orleans,
when the steamship later renowned as the Republic was
under the ownership of Charles Morgan.5
In addition to selling their own patent medicines, Lanman & Kemp’s New York-based enterprise also sold other
products. Records testify that these included those of James
C. Ayer, Edward Phalon, J.A. Tarrant, Charles Osgood,
Thomas Holloway, William B Moffat and B.L. Fahnestock, company names whose products are well represented
in the Republic’s patent medicine cargo. The firm also dealt
in opiates, medicinal and culinary herbs, spices, liquors,
flavorings, perfume extracts and a sundry of other medical
and non-medical items (cf. Lanman and Kemp Collection,
Domestic Correspondence, and Company History, Hagley
Museum Library). With its extensive business connections
throughout the United States and abroad, it is plausible
that Lanman & Kemp’s drug firm was responsible for the
shipment of at least some of the Republic’s bottled goods
other than just their own cosmetic line.
Also present among the beauty products are a host of hair
potions bearing names such as Burnett’s Cocoaine (Fig. 48).
The invention of Massachusetts’ Joseph Burnett may have
been intended to exploit the public’s fixation with the many
cocaine-laced patent medicines flooding the market. Unlike
his competitors, as a graduate of the Worcester College of
Pharmacy Burnett stands out as one of the few fully qualified pharmacists in this field. Meanwhile, Phalon and Son’s
Chemical Hair Invigorator (Fig. 51), manufactured by a New
York hairdresser and wigmaker, promised to preserve the hair
and prevent it turning gray (Fadely, 1992). A handful of milk
glass bottles contained Laird’s Bloom of Youth Liquid Pearl,
whose New York maker claimed it beautified and preserved
the complexion and skin (Fig. 49). While seemingly benign,
many of the beauty products of the era, particularly those for
the hair, contained harmful ingredients such as lead acetate,
which research today suggests is a carcinogen and likely contributed to the untimely death of many 19th-century consumers (pers. comm. Byron Dille’, June 2009).
The beauty and cosmetic goods on the Republic were
predominantly sold in glass containers and, with a few
exceptions, were largely American products. Yet, approximately 50 stoneware cosmetic pots were recovered from
the site in two distinct sizes (58cm and 79cm high), the
product of the famous French Perfumer L.T. Piver, whose
company name is transfer-printed on all of the pots (Fig.
50). By the 19th century, Piver’s international business
incorporated over one hundred branches around the world,
including shops in Paris that catered to the wealthy, including the Bonaparte family. Over the years the Piver company launched an exhaustive range of health and beauty
products, including a variety of perfumes, fragrant soaps
and body creams.6 The sturdy, unlidded stoneware pots
retrieved from the Republic perhaps contained one of L.T.
Piver’s cosmetic creams or face powders.
E. Alcoholic Beverages
Closely paralleling the volume of the beauty products
recovered from the Republic was a large consignment of beer
(Fig. 53), whiskey, champagne and wine bottles (830; 9.8%
of all bottles). Their thick dark glass reduced breakage and
inhibited exposure to heat and light, preventing spoilage
during transport and storage (Figs. 8-10). After the war,
19
as the population of the United States increased rapidly,
more than 100,000 saloons were in operation throughout
the country: by 1870, approximately one drinking institution for every 400 men, women and children (Gerth, 2006:
54). The large quantity of bottled wine, beer and other
liquors shipped on the Republic just months following
the war was intended to help restock the shelves of New
Orleans’ reinvigorated saloons.
4. Writing Slates
Some 61 rectangular writing slates were recovered in the
Area D debris field from a larger consignment discovered
on the shipwreck, including a deposit of uniform rows of
slates standing upright on their sides as originally packed
in their wooden shipping crates, which are otherwise
completely decomposed (Fig. 16). An 1869 handbook
for transoceanic shipments from the United Kingdom
describes in detail the method for stowing both roofing
and writing slates, which were typically shipped as ballast
cargo. A packing arrangement comparable to the Republic
is described, whereby “Slate is as brittle as earthenware and
requires equal care; slate ought to be stowed on its edges
and kept in that position; when flat it will be very liable to
break” (Gerth and Tolson, 2008: 44; Stevens, 1869: 548).
The distinctive blue-gray coloring of the Republic
slate shipment is a variety known as ‘Old Vein’, mined in
the Blaenau Ffestiniog district of northwest Wales (pers.
comm. Dafydd Roberts, National Slate Museum, August,
2008). While paper had become commonplace by the late
1800s, slates were used widely as writing tablets in schools
when paper was scarce and expensive. This was very probably the case after the Civil War, particularly in the formerly
Union-blockaded South.
The Republic’s slates were probably intended for
purchase and use in one of the many public, private or
religious schools in New Orleans and perhaps even in the
surrounding parishes (Gerth and Tolson, 2008: 45). A
revealing letter written by the American Missionary
Association teacher Edmonia Highgate in December
1866 described how her “French Creole” students from
plantations in Lafayette Parish purchased their own slates
and traveled between 3 and 8 miles to attend school. “So
anxious are they to learn”, she wrote, “that they walk these
distances so early in the morning as never to be tardy.
Every scholar buys his own book and slate.”7
5. Pottery
The excavation of the Republic also yielded an abundance
of sturdy white ironstone china pottery, largely utilitarian
Fig. 26. A Dr. McMunn’s
Elixir of Opium glass bottle
with cork stopper inside
(H. 10.6cm).
Fig. 27. A Mrs. Winslow’s
Soothing Syrup glass bottle,
a morphine-based formula
sold as a remedy for
teething infants (H. 12.1cm).
Fig. 30. A Holloway’s Ointment pot for the cure of
various ailments, including sore breasts,
gout and rheumatism (H. 3.8cm).
20
Fig. 28. A J.C. Ayer’s
Cherry Pectoral glass
bottle (H. 18.5cm).
Fig. 29. A J.C. Ayer’s
Cathartic Pills glass bottle,
which originally stored
pea-sized tablets to
treat countless ailments
including skin disease
(H. 5.3cm).
Fig. 31. A J.B. Thorn of London’s ceramic medicine pot
distributed by wholesale druggist John A. Tarrant of
New York (H. 4.6cm; Diam. 6.1cm).
Fig. 32. Dr. J. Hostetter’s Stomach
Bitters glass bottles once
contained a potent herbal brew
laced with alcohol (H. 22.0cm).
Fig. 33. Drake’s Plantation Bitters
glass bottles feature a
distinctive log cabin design
patented in 1862 (H. 25.0cm).
Fig. 35. Eight-paneled glass umbrella inkstands in assorted shades
of green and aquamarine, and a rare amethyst example (H. 6.3cm).
21
Fig. 34. A Guyot glass inkstand
containing its original cork
stopper (H. 6.6cm).
Fig. 36. Master ink bottles with pouring spouts
designed for refilling smaller ink containers
(the form has H. variables of 19.5-30.3cm).
Fig. 37. A British-made stoneware
ink pot (H. 5.6cm).
Fig. 40. A large unmarked British
stoneware bottle for storing
bulk ink, chemicals and other fluids
(H. 25.5cm).
22
Fig. 38. J. Bourne & Son stoneware ink
bottles once contained P. & J. Arnold’s
writing fluid; both company names are
stamped on the bottles’ bases’
(H 14.4cm and 18.0cm).
Fig. 41. An A. Kemp glass
preserve bottle containing remains
of pineapple (with modern plastic
protective cap) (H. 24.5cm).
Fig. 39. Detail of the company
stamp on a J. Bourne & Son
British stoneware bottle.
Also featured is the stamp
of the P. & J. Arnold London
ink-making firm.
Fig. 42. Sliced peaches, possibly
intended to be used as pie
filling, preserved in a glass bottle
(H. 30.0cm).
Fig. 43. Gooseberries preserved in a
glass bottle (H. 30.0cm).
Fig. 46. A Lea & Perrins Worcestershire
Sauce glass bottle with an intact
glass-and-cork stopper (H. 17.8cm).
23
Fig. 44. Cathedral-patterned glass
pepper sauce bottles featuring both
the square and six-sided version
(H. 22.5cm and 25.5cm).
Fig. 45. Cathedral-patterned glass
pickle bottles were recovered from
the wreck in four different sizes
and once stored a variety
of fruits and vegetables
(H. 28.0cm and 22.5cm).
Fig. 47. A Murray & Lanman’s
Florida Water glass bottle
(H. 22.8cm), advertized for both
health and beauty purposes.
Fig. 48. A Burnett’s Cocoaine hair
potion glass bottle (H. 18.0cm).
Fig. 49. J. & G.W. Laird ‘Bloom of Youth’ milk glass
bottles, its contents touted for “Beautifying &
Preserving the Complexion and Skin” (H. 11.7cm).
Fig. 51. A Phalon and Son’s
Chemical Hair Invigorator
glass bottle (H. 17.5cm).
24
Fig. 50. An L.T. Piver cosmetic cream or face
powder stoneware pot (H. 7.9cm).
Fig. 52. A Van Buskirk’s Fragrant
Sozodont glass bottle (H. 14.1cm),
its contents intended for cleaning
and preserving teeth and gums.
Fig. 53. Black glass beer bottles. The
dark color produced by iron oxide
strengthened the glass and inhibited
exposure to light, reducing spoilage
(H. 24.5cm and 20.3cm).
ware mass-produced for the American market by England’s
Staffordshire potters (Figs. 12-15, 54-72). A number of
pieces bear the maker’s marks of prominent potteries,
including T. & R. Boote, Joseph Goodwin, Jacob Furnival,
and John Maddock & Son. Also known as English porcelain and stone china, ironstone china was first introduced
by Staffordshire potters in the early 19th century as a
substitute for porcelain. It was a modest ware that appealed
to a less expensive market. In marketing terms, the name
‘Ironstone China’ was fitting because it was immediately
identifiable, implied high quality and had hard durability.
By the early 1840s, America received its first ironstone imports; English potters soon discovered that the inhabitants
of the ‘colonies’ greatly preferred this unfussy, plain and
durable china to more exotic wares. It was an immediate
success and public demand soared.8
A sample of 2,775 pieces of white ironstone china was
recovered from the wreck of the Republic. Some 1,186
saucers bear the maker’s mark of John Maddock & Son;
266 of the saucers are 12cm-diameter demitasses; 17 are
of 15cm diameter and 883 of 16cm diameter (plus 20
undefined). The saucers are accompanied by ironstone cups
(1,067) of at least three different shapes and sizes (483 of
7.6cm height and 274 of 8cm height), including 365 of
the smaller, more delicate demitasse (Figs. 54-58).
A sample of the eclectic ironstone table and toilet wares
was also recovered in substantially smaller quantities. Table
wares include 157 dishes with lids, 18 plates, eight drinking
mugs, three soup bowls, a casserole serving dish and one
coffee/tea pot. Utilitarian toilet wares essential to health
and hygiene in an era lacking indoor plumbing include 27
water pitchers (Figs. 63-66), nine wash basins (Fig. 69), 19
assorted soap dishes/strainers/lids, 10 toothbrush holders
and lids (or brush boxes with lids; Figs. 67-68), 10 chamber
pots and 10 lids (Figs. 70-72), eight slop jars (Figs. 60-62),
an additional seven lids, and eight footbaths (Fig. 59).
A few of the plain ironstone toilet wares were embellished with gold ornamental trim, the remains of which
can be seen on a few individual vessels, including washbasins, chamber pots, pitchers, and toothbrush containers,
the latter referred to as ‘brush boxes’ in 19th-century documents (pers comm. Robert Hunter, May 2009). Many of
the ironstone examples feature decorative fruits, nuts, and
grains, popular themes suggestive of the American prairies
and presented as design elements formed on pot handles
and as finials on lids.
Although clay was plentiful in areas of the United
States, most dinner and toilet wares were imported until
the late 19th century. American clay was reserved for making bricks, tiles and other practical utensils such as crocks
and jugs.9
25
6. Religious Objects
In stark contrast to the mass of utilitarian cargo recovered
from the wreck site was a distinctive concentration of about
96 religious objects shipped in a single wooden crate, still
partly preserved on the seabed (Fig. 17). These included
34 pressed-glass candlesticks in the form of the crucified
Christ (Fig. 20), produced in both white and green glass,
as well additional porcelain candlestick pairs featuring the
figurative form of St. Joseph and the Virgin Mary holding
Jesus. The crate was also filled with porcelain figurines of
the Virgin Mary, assorted angels, Virgin Mary holy water
fonts, and angel and crucifix holy water fonts.
Crucifix-themed glass candlesticks were popular at
the time of the Republic’s final voyage and were used in
private homes, convents and churches. Between 1840 and the
latter part of the century, several American glassworks
produced such objects in a variety of colors, often opaque,
to appear more like ceramic than glass. Typically sold
in pairs, research suggests that the examples from the
Republic, in both white and green glass, were manufactured
by the Boston and Sandwich Glass Company of Massachusetts, founded in 1825 and credited with having produced
the country’s first pressed glass (pers. comm. Jane Spillman,
April 2005; pers. comm. Dorothy Hogan-Schofield, July
2009; Barlow and Kaiser, 1983: 61).
The majority of religious artifacts recovered from
the site are Continental hard paste porcelains, most of
which are glazed, with a few unglazed pieces, the latter
commonly referred to as bisque porcelain or biscuit ware.
These include porcelain statuettes portraying ‘Our Lady
of Grace’, presented as the ‘Queen of Heaven and Earth’,
standing on a base, which appears to symbolize the globe
with a depiction of the sun in the center. One version
of the statue wears a veil; the other is adorned with a
crown decorated with 12-stylized stars thought to represent
the 12 Apostles (pers. comm. Father William Kurchinsky,
April 2009).
Additional examples include small angel figurines,
both standing and kneeling, one version kneeling on
a square base with traces of its original black and red
pigment; porcelain Holy Family candlestick pairs in three
different sizes, one representing the Virgin Mary holding
the infant Jesus, the other, St. Joseph with his characteristic lily; and three different forms of holy water fonts, one
depicting the Virgin Mary standing inside a decorative
shrine (representing ‘Our Lady of Grace’ or possibly, the
‘Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes), and another portraying Christ on the cross, designed for hanging on a wall;
and lastly, a tiny angel with a small basin at its feet, whose
diminutive size is suggestive of little tokens or gifts given to young children (pers. comm. Barbara Perry, April
Fig. 54. A British ironstone china demi
saucer bearing the maker’s mark of
John Maddock & Son (Diam. 16.0cm).
Fig. 55. A British ironstone china
demitasse cup recovered from
amongst a large cargo of utilitarian
wares intended for everyday
domestic use (H. 6.4cm).
Fig. 57. A British ironstone
china cup (H. 7.6cm).
beveled cup (H. 7.7cm).
26
Fig. 56. A British ironstone
china mug (H. 9.7cm).
Fig. 59. A British ironstone china footbath
with ornamental handles; decorative
toilet wares were commonly sold
as matching sets (H. 22.0cm).
Figs. 60-61. A British ironstone china slop jar with decorative handles featuring
fruit and harvest-related themes inspired by the American prairies (H. 31.5cm).
Fig. 63. An ironstone china water
pitcher that would have accompanied
a wash basin (H. 30.0cm).
27
water pitcher (H. 30.0 cm).
Fig. 62. A British ironstone china slop
jar lid with ornamental finial
(H. 10.5cm).
water pitcher (H. 24.0cm).
28
water pitcher (H. 19.5cm).
Fig. 67. An ironstone china toothbrush holder with lid, known
as a ‘brush box’ in 19th-century documents (L. 21.9cm).
Fig. 68. An ironstone china toothbrush holder with lid
featuring a decorative finial similar to other pottery
wares recovered from the wreck (L. 21.9cm).
Fig. 69. A British Ironstone china wash basin (H. 11.2cm).
Fig. 70. A British ironstone china chamber pot (H. 14.3cm).
Fig. 72. A British ironstone china chamber
pot or slop jar lid with remains of
decorative gold trim (H. 10.5cm).
29
Fig. 71. A British ironstone china chamber pot (H. 14.3cm).
Fig. 73. A child’s tea set adorned with black figures in classical garb
reminiscent of ancient Greek vases (H. tea cups 4.6cm, L. saucers 8.5cm).
2005; pers. comm. Father William J. Kuchinsky, April and
August 2009). Lacking maker’s marks and factory records,
the origins of these porcelain objects remain uncertain,
but some appear to be similar to those bought and sold
wholesale by the Swiss Benziger Brothers, whose New York
City branch, founded in 1853, was in operation when the
Republic sank.
The Republic figurines, however, most closely resemble hard paste porcelain wares produced in France, very
probably Limoges, where dozens of 19th-century factories
supplied New York City’s import trade. Having launched
the French porcelain import trade in the 1840s, the Haviland family, in particular, not only imported French wares
to New York on a grand scale but also sold their imports
wholesale to other American porcelain traders (pers comm.
Robert Doares, July 2009; Wood and Doares, 2005: 24).
This unique crate is published in detail elsewhere (Tolson
and Gerth, 2009).
7. Miscellaneous
The other 3,080 artifacts recovered from the wreck of the
Republic consist of an extraordinary diversity of goods,
from four-holed white and brown porcelain buttons, bolts
of cloth (Fig. 6), dominoes, harmonicas, horse spurs, clock
parts, cane handles made of pewter, brass, wood and ivory,
and 951 pieces of widely assorted hardware (ceramic doorknobs with metal shanks, spigots likely intended for use with
barrels or kegs, door hinges, file rasps, keys, door locks and
278 spoons plus 13 further concretions containing multiple
spoons; Figs. 79-82, 87-88). These goods were presumably
intended for New Orleans hardware merchants hoping to
rebuild a former trade or launch a new business.
Without the convenience of modern plumbing,
Victorians washed their hair far less often than today, but combing and styling were essential to everyday
hygiene and grooming. The excavation yielded a handful
of combs, both straight and folding varieties, as well as
individual stacks of concreted ladies’ headbands (Figs.
83-85). Visibly similar to their modern-day plastic counterparts, the Republic shipment was made of vulcanite
(vulcanized rubber), a typically black rubber-like substance
first produced in 1843 by the American inventor Charles
Goodyear (Wilson, 1917: 185).
A cargo of toiletries recovered from the Republic
includes a dozen bone toothbrushes, their swine-hair
bristles no longer intact (Fig. 86). ‘Very Fine London’
printed on the handle of a few examples reveal a British origin. Toothbrushes were first produced in England
around 1780, but were not mass-produced in America
30
until after 1885. Accompanying this oral hygiene package
were bottles of Van Buskirk’s Fragrant Sozodont, created
in 1859 by the New Jersey druggist Roswell Van Buskirk
(Fig. 52). Advertisements claimed that this product would
clean and preserve the teeth and harden the gums as well
as “impart a delightfully refreshing taste and feeling to the
mouth” (Fike, 1987: 187).10 Retangular-shaped ironstone
toothbrush holders with lids were also recovered from the
Republic (Figs. 67-68).
The few one-off objects found on the wreck of the
Republic site are suggestive of personal possessions stowed
among the passengers’ belongings or perhaps shipped in
reduced quantities as limited consignments. Among these
individual items is a seemingly rare and virtually intact
child’s tea set consisting of a teapot accompanied by four
cups and saucers, a waste bowl, a sugar bowl and creamer
(Fig. 73). Such sets of the era were intended not only as
toys, but also to teach young girls how to serve tea properly. The assemblage features a neoclassical decorative theme
bearing several complementary motifs. The use of black
figures dressed in classical garb against a red background is
reminiscent of Classical Greek vases. The decorations were
applied to the plates and vessels with transfer prints and
then the pieces were fired to make the decoration permanent (pers. comm. Barbara Perry, April 2005).
The excavation yielded four individual porcelain
figurines, probably of French origin, the product of one or
more of the many factories mass producing porcelain wares
for the American market (pers comm. Robert Doares, July
2009). Each figurine represents a different character and
theme. A man and his female counterpart, both without
pigment or paint, were clearly intended to be a matching
pair (Figs. 76-77). Their seemingly playful gestures and
courtly attire are reminiscent of the 18th-century Rococo
style, which placed an emphasis on portraying the carefree
life of the aristocracy. Love and romance were common
themes, marked by free and graceful movement. This elegant porcelain couple would have been admired by ladies
of the era and presented in their homes on fireplace mantels or tea tables (pers. comm. Barbara Perry, April 2005).
A third ceramic figurine depicts a country maiden with
remains of red pigment, while a fourth ‘neo-rococo’ porcelain figurine represents a costumed female figure, a motif
popular in the 19th century with its renewed interest in
historical art styles.
A well-known class of artifact amongst the one-off finds
on the site was an individual ‘Rebekah-at-the-Well’ teapot
featuring the typical brown Rockingham glaze. In 1851
Edwin Bennet of Baltimore produced an earthenware
teapot illustrating a scene from this biblical story, one of
the most popular Bible stories of the time. From a practical utilitarian standpoint, the dark glaze was effective in
hiding tea stains. However, the decoration itself was the
more influential selling point and quite possibly offered
the single greatest contribution to the huge popularity of
Rockingham ware teapots (Perkins, 2004: 81). The bestknown Rockingham products were made at Bennington,
Vermont, yet almost every pottery in the eastern United
States and Ohio also produced them (pers. comm. Barbara
Perry, April 2005).
A unique porcelain figural inkstand cover portrays a
woman sewing and accompanied by children reading at
her side (Fig. 78). Hidden beneath this decorative piece
is a tray with two small holders containing a removable
ink and spill pot. Further detail depicts a small round face
repeated on both of the pot holders. The inkstand is indicative of production in the Staffordshire Minton Pottery and Porcelain Factory founded in the 1790s to rapidly
become the uncontested leader in the European ceramic
market (Csenkey, 2002: 24; pers. comm. Barbara Perry,
April 2005).
Additional one-of-a-kind artifacts recovered from the
wreck of the Republic include an oversized porcelain cup
and saucer with hand-painted leaves and flowers; a small
transfer-printed tray probably manufactured in a British
pottery (pers. comm. Barbara Perry, April 2005); a pressed
glass bar bottle in the ‘Ashburton’ pattern with a ground
and polished base, likely a product of the New England
Glass Company; a pressed glass inkstand featuring the
‘Argus’ (thumbprint) pattern produced by Bakewell, Pears
and Company or M’Kee and Brothers, both 19th-century
Pittsburgh glass houses.
Of special interest are three distinctive glass oil lamp
fonts, one of which was hand blown and features elaborate
hand-decorated red glass threads, which were probably intended to conceal the yellowish oil (or more likely kerosene) that had recently been introduced as the lamp fuel
of choice, both cheaper and less odorous than whale oil.
The threaded decoration on the lamp was especially laborintensive, thus making the object more expensive. The
stem and foot of the Republic’s font are broken off, but the
stem would originally have been about as long as the glass
font and probably terminated in a colorless glass pressed
foot or base (pers. comm. Jane Spillman, April 2005; Spillman, 2006: 15).
The second lamp is a clear glass font with a repeating cable and star patterned decoration, its stem and foot
also broken away. The third lamp font, hand-blown with
31
a ruby-colored overlay cut to clear glass, and an engraved,
heavily faded vine decoration running along its shoulder, is
accompanied by a pressed milk glass base (Figs. 22, 74-75).
Produced by the Boston and Sandwich Glass Company
of Massachusetts, this particular lamp would have been
described as ‘plated, cut and engraved’ by the hardware
and lighting companies that sold them (Barlow and Kaiser,
1989: 205-206). The overlay technique for producing the
font involved encasing or plating the glass on the outside
with a different color glass, and then cutting it back by
hand to reveal the glass beneath. Such production began
in the 1840s, when the Boston and Sandwich Glass Company set up a small furnace intended for the manufacture
of colored glass for plated wares. The labor involved in
the glassmaking and cutting made this piece considerably
more expensive than most table lamps. Its use, like similar
pieces of the era, was intended for city homes and large
estates, where a staff of servants could maintain them in
pristine condition (Barlow and Kaiser, 1989: 195).
The individual artifacts also include a lemonade or
whiskey tumbler pressed in the ‘Ribbed Ivy’ pattern,
possibly the product of M’Kee Brothers (pers. comm. Jane
Spillman, April 2005; Spillman, 2006: 16); an ironstone
relish dish with a popular shell pattern, probably from a
British Staffordshire pottery (pers. comm. Barbara Perry,
April 2005); a small porcelain vase with a budding flower
motif and an underglaze cobalt blue decoration, typifying
French production; two larger matching porcelain vases,
also of probable French manufacture, referred to as ‘wedding vases’ or ‘mantel vases’ in light of a French custom
whereby matched pairs were presented to young brides and
grooms for display on their mantels (pers. comm. Robert
Doares, July 2009) and a syringe-like device made of vulcanite (a hard rubber) believed to be for hygienic purposes
(woman’s douche), with the remains of a patent stamp
suggestive of Nelson Goodyear’s May 6th 1851 patent for
processing hard vulcanite (Wilson, 1917: 185; Fig. 90).
After four years of relative economic isolation during
the Civil War, the everyday goods from the wreck of the
Republic – some sacred but most utilitarian – would have
been both essential and welcome to alleviate years of hardship in everyday life in New Orleans. The ship’s enormous
shipment of largely everyday items, plus a small array of
luxuries, would have helped rejuvenate the city’s diminished stores. Unexpected and undocumented on most
other 19th-century steamships of the era, the cargo of the
Republic offers a unique window into the aspirations of
Victorian New Orleans.
Fig. 74. A ruby-colored glass oil lamp font and milk glass base made
by the Boston and Sandwich Glass Company of Massachusetts.
Fig. 75. Drawing of the fading vine decoration engraved on the shoulder of the ruby-colored glass oil lamp font.
32
Figs. 76-77. Porcelain figurines depicting a man and his female counterpart,
both without pigment or paint and of probable French production (H. 13.4cm and 12.5cm).
Fig. 78. A British Staffordshire figural porcelain inkstand cover portraying a woman sewing accompanied by children
reading at her side. The decorative tray at right, holding two removable ink and spill pots, would have been
hidden beneath the figures (H. inkstand cover 13.0cm; W. of base 15.4cm).
33
Fig. 79. The ironmongery cargo includes doorknobs, locks, keys, rivits, spigots and files.
Fig. 80. The Republic’s varied cargo included consignments of dominos,
harmonicas, glass buttons and clock parts.
34
Fig. 81. A concretion of pewter spoons before conservation.
Fig. 82. A pewter spoon from the wreck of the Republic (L. 20.8cm).
35
Fig. 83. A straight-edged vulcanite comb (L. 17.8cm).
Fig. 84. A vulcanite folding comb (L. 8.9cm).
36
Fig. 85. Vulcanite ladies’ headbands still in their original
stacked shipping positions (Widths 12.3-14.9cm).
Fig. 87. A clothes iron (L. 13.4cm) with
molded handle for extra grip.
37
Fig. 86. A bone toothbrush (L. 17.0cm).
Fig. 88. Iron scissors (L. 15.6cm).
Fig. 89. The remains of a leather shoe from
the Area D debris field (L. 26.1cm).
Fig. 90. A vulcanite woman’s douche used for
personal hygiene (L. 18.0cm).
Fig. 91. A rectangular metal engine lining ingot stamped with the names S. Whites and J. W. Quincy of
New York, the company that probably mixed the metals and cast the ingots (L. 21.4cm).
38
8. Conclusion:
Comparative Analysis
New Orleans earned its economic status as the ‘Queen
of the South’ by riding on a cloud of steam. Only after
the introduction of the steamboat in Louisiana waters in
1811 could vessels comfortably counter the currents of the
Mississippi to reach the city’s wharves, over 150km from
the river’s mouth (Irion and Ball, 2001: 48). The SS
Republic was a vital cog in revitalizing New Orleans after
years of economic decline had stripped the city’s shops of
basic commodities and luxuries alike. Her cargo displays
links with the US, France and notably Britain in the form
of products transported in glass and stoneware bottles,
Welsh writing slates, French porcelain wares and Staffordshire ironstone china. Valued at $340 million in 1860, US
trade with the United Kingdom was triple the volume of
the next country, France (Selcer, 2006: 90).
Due to rich historical sources, combined with key
excavated sites, an abundance of data exists to examine
the function and flaws of steam-powered vessels. The
mid-19th century was a transitional time for steam-powered river, coastal and trans-oceanic ships. Much is known
about the construction and capabilities of steamers through
the comparative study of other 19th-century steam-powered vessels.
The shipwrecks of this type of craft are embedded in
the field of marine archaeology today. Steamships were the
largest and most complex machines of their era, unrivalled
until the advent of the automobile and the construction
of roads (VandenHazel, 1987: 331). They were largely
classless and their passengers varied in economic and social
status from wealthy vacationers to poor immigrants and
everything in between (Lockhart, 2006: 4). The finds on
such shipwrecks can reflect this diversity. Lockhart (2006:
89) has compellingly argued that using age as a measure of
a wreck’s importance should only be one of many criteria.
Significance, more appropriately, should be based on the
importance of the vessel’s history, its influence on an area,
country or culture, its relevance to the development of a
country, its ability to provide information, its public interest and as an example of a specific technology.
The major archaeological significance of the SS Republic
is its enormous collection of artifacts, which bridge the class
divide. High-value gold and silver coins are intermixed with
coal, humble glass bottles, modest everyday china, harmonicas and dominoes, a microcosm of the re-emerging vitality
of contemporary New Orleans. Because of her great depth,
much of the cargo that the Republic’s crew and passengers
failed to jettison in a desperate attempt to save her survive
on the sea bottom. By contrast, steamers lost in shallow
39
waters were readily salvaged. As a consequence, the majority of such excavated steamship sites are largely defined by
well-preserved hull remains and engines, many of which
have been examined in detail. Numerous shipwrecks spanning the period 1838-93 – before and after the date of the
Republic’s loss – provide comprehensive contexts for the
evolution of steamers on lakes, rivers and seaways from
northern Europe to the Americas.
Loaded with provisions for the US Army garrison at Fort
Towson, Oklahoma, in March 1838 the sidewheel steamer
Heroine snagged on the bed of the Red River. Her cargo was
ruined, but the engine salvaged. Excavations have revealed
that the hull and main deck are complete, stretching for
43m under the sand and with hatches still in place. Barrels
of pickled pork and the intact rudder have been recovered.
The Heroine is the only known historical shipwreck in the
state of Oklahoma (Crisman, 2005: 220-21).
The hulls of two Morgan Line steamers have been
recorded in detail. The New York left Galveston on 5
September 1846 with 30 passengers and a crew of 23
and hit a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico. Located off
the coast of Biloxi, Mississippi, the Josephine was an ironhulled steamer built in 1867 and lost in 11.5m of water
in the Chandeleur chain off Mississippi in February 1881
en route to New Orleans (Irion and Ball, 2001: 50-51,
54-55). Off the coast of Nova Scotia, the structure of the
transatlantic steamer Humboldt, lost in December 1853
and at 2,181 tons one of the largest ships of her time, has
been documented (Kenchington and Whitelock, 1996).
The 25.05m-long oak and pine Eric Nordewall was one
of five paddle steamers built in the 1830s by the Ship Company for Steam Boat Trade to cater for the newly opened
Gota Kanal, which crossed Sweden from the Baltic Sea to
the west coast. She foundered on 4 June 1856 following 20
years of service after grounding on a shoal outside the town
of Vadstena in Lake Vattern and plummeting to a depth
of 45m. Her hull is in an outstanding level of preservation. Whereas the superstructure and interior fittings of the
Republic have been completely stripped away by currents,
the intact hull of the wreck of the Eric Nordewall is still
“furnished with a pleasing decoration in the Empire style,
very unlike the steel and glass fibre surroundings of the
travel compartment of today. The wide benches along the
walls of the saloons where the saloon passengers may have
slept side by side with no partitions between them tell the
same story” (Cederlund, 1987: 113).
The coastal paddle steamer blockade-runner Denbigh,
one of the most successful and famous of the American
Civil War, has been recorded near Galveston, where she was
wrecked in May 1865 after being shelled whilst running
the Union blockade (Arnold, 2005: 222-25; Arnold et al.,
2001). Very few artifacts survive but, lost in the same year
as the Republic, her hull represents an important structural
counterpoint to the Republic’s cargo diversity. Further afield,
the engine of the SS Xantho, a 32.3m-long iron-hulled
paddle steamer built by Denny’s of Dumbarton in 1848,
and lengthened and refitted as a screw steamer in 1871 before being wrecked off Port Gregory, Western Australia, in
shallow water in 1872, has been excavated, recovered and
studied in detail (McCarthy, 1988: 342; McCarthy, 1995).
Unlike the Republic, many steamships foundered in waters that were sufficiently shallow to permit contemporary
salvage. Thus, the cargo of the 2,000-ton capacity wreck
of the stern-paddle-wheel steamer Montana, beached at
St. Charles, Missouri, in 1884, was recovered immediately
after her loss. Nevertheless, the site is of major importance
because very few historical records chronicle the great
service that river boats performed in America’s western
migration. 70% of her hull survives and displays frame-first
technology, although a keel-plank and some of its bottom
outer hull-planks were probably laid down before the floors.
Montana’s design does not easily fit into prevailing theories
of bottom-, skeleton- or shell-first construction because
only part of her structural strength derived from her hull.
The rest came from her hogging-chain system, an external
support (Corbin and Rodgers, 2007: 62, 64, 65, 67).
Finally, the side paddlewheel steamer John Fraser, lost in
1893 in 14m of water in Lake Nipissing, Ontario, was used
to tow logs from assembly points such as the mouth of the
Sturgeon River to sawmills, transported shantymen to the
winter logging camps and towed flat-bottomed barges with
supplies of hay, oats, barley, beans, salted meat, horses, sawmill parts, tools, cooking stoves, kitchen utensils, china and
the personal belongings of settlers and forestry workers. She
has been termed “a highly organized assemblage of people,
machines and materials functioning together” (VandenHazel, 1987: 331). Detailed examination of the above hulls
and their internal machinery – description of which is beyond the scope of this report – furnish a comprehensive
reconstruction of the design and efficacy of steam power in
the age of the Republic.
A similar deep-water site to the SS Republic is the sidewheel steamer SS Central America. Launched in October
1852 for the United States Mail Steamship Company, this
three-mast, 82m-long vessel ran regular trips between New
York and Panama. On the second day of battling a hurricane in September 1857 she sprang a leak and sank the next
day, 256km off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, in 3,000m
of water and with the loss of 426 passengers and crew.
Using early remote technology, a high-value specie and
gold ingot cargo was recovered along with many artifacts,
including a diversity of glass and stoneware bottles, many
40
with distinctive shapes similar to those recovered from
the Republic, yet found in substantially lower volumes.
Examples include medicinal, wine and sauce bottles and
a stoneware example with the J. Bourne & Son Denby
and Codnor Park Potteries stamp (Thompson, 1998:
157), yet lacking the P. & J. Arnold London ink company
mark that is distinctive to the stoneware master ink bottles shipped aboard the Republic. The SS Central America
also carried white ironstone china, including a pitcher
and blue-trimmed mugs, whose small size most suited
a child (Thompson, 1998: 159). A breakdown of the
specific quantities of glass bottles and ironstones wares on
the Central America is currently unpublished.
Particularly unique to this wreck, however, were numerous intact passenger trunks, which unlike the multiple cargo
items recovered from the Republic, provide a unique insight
into the specific individuals who were travelling on board
the Central America. The first trunk retrieved from the debris field belonged to two newlyweds and contained both
men’s and women’s clothing, including custom-made linen
dress shirts, a single-breasted waistcoat with patterned silk,
a linen morning robe and a lace-trimmed dressing gown.
Also stored in the trunk was a pair of Derringer pistols, a
dog’s head watch fob with garnet eyes and various toiletries,
such as a hairbrush with hair still clinging to its bristles
(Thompson, 1998: 140, 142-4, 148-9). No intact passenger cargo trunks were discovered on the Republic, which
suggests that they were the first to be thrown overboard by
the crew in a failed attempt to save the ship.
In terms of cargo content, a close parallel to the Republic is the Arabia, a wooden river steamboat built by John
Snyder Pringle in Brownsville, Pennsylvania, in 1853. At
51.3m long, she was an average sized river steamboat. On
5 September 1856 the Arabia struck a submerged walnut
tree in the Missouri River, which pierced her hull while
she was heavily loaded with 222 tons of cargo destined for
frontier merchants. Over the decades the river changed its
course, so that when the wreck of the Arabia was discovered
in 1988 by a team using a proton magnetometer she was
located 13.5m under a Kansas farmer’s cornfield.
Excavation of the ship uncovered a diverse cargo of
trade goods still preserved in wooden barrels and crates, including Goodyear rubber shoes, boots, European ceramic
dishes packed in straw, gold-rimmed eyeglasses, buttons,
beads, doorknobs, shirts, glass-bottled food, medicine and
spirit bottles, inkwells, clay smoking pipes, candles, textiles,
spoons, bells, wrenches, guns and pocket knives. Many
of these mid 19th-century wares are virtually identical to
those recovered from the Republic, including brown marbelized and white ceramic doorknobs, keys, spoons, files and
bottles with preserved fruit probably intended as pie filling,
as well as the popular Dr. J. Hosttetter’s Stomach Bitters
(Hawley, 1995: 42, 58-9; Hawley, 1998: 77, 146, 208).
Based on a concept of financial security in diversity rather
than bulk, no two cases on the Arabia were alike. Aspects
of this philosophy are shared in the Republic.
The loss of the Arabia was not a rare event. In the 44
years preceding 1897, 273 boats sank along the Missouri,
193 of them wrecked on snags similar to that which crippled the Arabia (Switzer, 1974: 2). So hazardous was river
travel that the expected life of a Missouri river steamboat
was less then five years (Hawley, 1995: 8).
Another of the Missouri’s young victims was the steamer
Bertrand, built in Wheeling, West Virginia, in 1864. The
48m-long, low draft vessel sank less than a year later on 1
April 1865 when the steamer struck a hidden snag at Portage La Force near De Soto Landing in Nebraska Territory.
The Bertrand had departed from St. Louis bound for Fort
Benton in Montana Territory two weeks earlier carrying at
least 10 passengers and over 250 tons of agricultural and
mining supplies, household paraphernalia, munitions, and
clothing, as well as canned and bottled foodstuffs, wines
and bitters. Also on board was an estimated 35,000 pounds
of mercury, probably intended to help extract gold through
the amalgamation process. Two contemporary attempts to
salvage the cargo were largely unsuccessful, yet appear to
have recovered most of the mercury (Switzer, 1974: 1).
As in the case of the Arabia, the Bertrand was discovered with its intact cargo well preserved in deep mud and
silt. In 1968 and 1969 a recovery project supervized by
archaeologists of the National Park Service and personnel
of the Bureau of Sports Fisheries and Wildlife excavated the
Bertrand’s voluminous shipment of frontier-bound trade
goods, yielding over two million artifacts. The hull was subsequently reburied (Corbin, 2002a: 14; 2002b: 201; Switzer,
1974: 1). Lost just six months prior to the Republic, the Bertrand’s cargo of more than 6,000 glass and stoneware bottles
bears striking similarities to the Republic (Switzer, 1974: vii),
although the latter collection of over 8,000 bottles is larger
in quantity and presents a broader diversity of bottle types.
Many of the finds had precise parallels to the Republic:
keys, spoons, clock parts, buttons, doorknobs, door locks,
axe heads and leather shoes, as well as combs made of
hard rubber and ironstone china packed in wooden barrels (Petsche, 1974: 49, 60-61, 64-65, 69). The Bertrand’s
6,000 glass and stoneware bottles include forms represented
in the Republic’s larger assemblage. In the bitters’ category,
191 bottles of Dr. J. Hostetter’s Stomach Bitters were found
in 12-bottle cases on the Bertrand (Petsche, 1974: 50-51;
Switzer, 1974: 33-4). Also represented in both assemblages
are Drake’s Plantation Bitters bottles (109 on the Bertrand),
whiskey bottles produced in the Ellenville Glass Works,
41
beer, ale, wine and champagne bottles, and an assortment of
foodstuff, including preserved fruit, condiments and sauces.
Among the latter are the distinctive cathedral pickle and
pepper sauces, Burnett’s flavoring extract, and barrel-shaped
mustard bottles with raised staves and bands distinctive to
this bottle type (45 on the Bertrand) (Switzer, 1974: 16-20,
23-6, 29, 33-4, 36-7, 44-6, 48-50, 51-8, 78).
Additional bottled foodstuffs represented in the Bertrand
collection include a probable competitor to the original Lea
& Perrins Worcestershire Sauce bottles (33 on Bertrand).
While the Bertrand examples feature glass stoppers embossed
with the Lea & Perrins company name, the embossment
on the shoulder of the bottles cunningly reads ‘Worcester
Sauce’, not the traditional ‘Worcestershire Sauce.’ Unlike
the Republic’s authentic Lea & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce
bottles, the Bertrand examples are vertically embossed with
the E.F. Dixie company name, which research suggests was
probably a Worcester, Massachusetts, firm competing in
the 1860s with the more popular British brand and reusing
original Lea & Perrins glass stoppers to promote its bottled
sauce (Switzer, 1974: 59, 79; pers. comm. Bill Lindsey,
June 2009). In the ink category, one case of the Bertrand’s
cargo contained 24 J. Bourne & Son’s stoneware master ink
bottles, also from the Denby and Codnor Park Potteries
and similarly stamped with the mark of the P. & J. Arnold
London ink company (Switzer, 1974: 67).
Buried for over a century in an anaerobic muddy environment, the Bertrand’s bottles were largely well preserved
with their contents intact, as were their corks, paper labels,
wax and foil seals and stencilled wooden packing crates. A
more detailed study of the Bertrand collection in tandem
with that of the Republic will no doubt shed further light
on how the Republic bottles may have been sealed, packed,
stored and shipped.
In conclusion, starved of everyday commodities and
luxuries, yet spared by early conquest and the subsequent
importance to the Union war effort, New Orleans was once
again a major port on the rise with great demands in 1865,
when the Republic slipped beneath the waters of the Atlantic Ocean. Before the Civil War, arrivals at the Levee quay
in New Orleans had averaged 300 steamboats a month, and
about half that amount of oceangoing sailing ships (Van
Zante, 2008: 65). Joseph Holt Ingraham reflected the prosperity of the time in The Sunny South; Or, the Southerner at
Home (Philadelphia, 1860), where the Levee port was described as a “ceaseless maelstrom of motion… Imagine one
broad field of such commercial life, four miles in unbroken
extent, and you will have some idea of the ‘Levee’ at New
Orleans.”
However, virtually all trade ceased with the outbreak
of war, with W.C. Corsan observing in Two Months in
the Confederate States: an Englishman’s Travels Through the
South (London, 1863: 10-11) that in “time of peace, this
immense area would have been piled up from end to end…
[but] how different was the sight that met our eyes. Half
a dozen paltry coasters, seeking a freight which was not to
be found… while neither a bale of cotton, a hogshead of
sugar, a bushel of corn, a packet of merchandise, or a man
at work, could be seen from one end of that levee”.
New Orleans resident Marion Southwood found oatgrass growing over the town’s wharves during the war years
and sadly reminisced that “where formerly all was life,
bustle and animation, nothing is doing… The place looks
as if it had been swept by a plague”. The decay of the
wharves made them so unstable that at the end of the war
ships were compelled to land three and four deep on the
few secure landing stages. In 1867, around $300,000 of
the $3.1 million New Orleans city budget – the largest
single item – was invested in the repair of the wharves and
landings (Van Zante, 2008: 66).
The cargo of the SS Republic, in particular, is a unique
archaeological witness to the origins and forms of imports
circulating in New Orleans and the South in the immediate aftermath of the American Civil War. Although this
shipwreck may be considered to be relatively recent chronologically, its rich archaeology helps considerably resurrect
one of America’s most important and intensively studied
periods of history.
Acknowledgements
The authors of this report are enormously grateful to the
entire Odyssey team whose steadfast commitment and
breadth of expertise ensured that the Republic project succeeded. The authors extend huge thanks to the following:
Odyssey co-founders, Greg Stemm and John Morris, for their vision, endurance and unyielding determination to find the Republic; Marine Operations Manager Roy Truman whose soaring expectations guaranteed
success; Project Manager Ernie Tapanes and his team of
side-scan technicians, whose meticulous search operations
and extraordinary patience ultimately led to the amazing discovery; Project Managers Tom Detweiller, Andrew
Craig and Mark Martin for their rare gift in directing and
managing shipboard operations and for their undying
support of the entire operational team; ROV Supervisors
Gary Peterson, Eric Peterson and Jim Starr and all the ROV
technicians whose competence and adroit skills ensured
that the artifacts were recovered from the site with the utmost care and in tandem with the highest archaeological
standards; Data Manager Gerhard Steiffert and his team
of dataloggers, who painstakingly recorded every minute
of every dive and managed the enormous mountain of
42
data, photographs and underwater footage that was recorded; and the Master’s officers and the crew of the Odyssey
Explorer, without whom the time spent on the ship months
away from home in sometimes terrible seas would have
been unbearable.
To our good friend, colleague and archaeologist, Hawk
Tolson, whose professionalism, encouragement and support have never wavered and whose adept research skills
during those rare off-hours have provided a wealth of
information. A mighty thank you is offered to John
Oppermann and his entire research team who have
supported this project with great energy and enthusiasm, in particular Kathy Evans and John Griffith. We are
indebted to Adam and Eric Tate whose patience and
Excel wizardry accessed the artifact data so relevant to
the report. Gerri Graca, Odyssey’s archivist extraordinaire, demonstrated exceptional resourcefulness locating
essential and often obscure sources and other critical
references. Fred Van De Walle, Chief Conservator and
his dedicated team, Alan Bosel and Chad Morris, responded to our numerous queries and have set high
standards of conservation, recording, documentation
and photography. To Laura Barton and her team for all
the media support and wonderful graphics generated.
A special thank you is extended to the designer Melissa
Kronewitter and to George Salmon and Chad Morris for
producing exquisite photography.
We are especially grateful to an elite group of professionals, who have so generously offered their invaluable
time and vast knowledge to the SS Republic project: Jane
Spillman, Curator of Glass, Corning Museum of Glass;
Barbara Perry, Former Curator of Decorative Arts, the Mint
Museum; Bill Lindsey, formerly Bureau of Land Management and author of the Society for Historical Archaeology/BLM Historic Glass Bottle Identification and
Information Website; Robert Hunter, British and American
ceramic scholar and editor of Ceramics in America; Dafydd
Roberts, Keeper, National Slate Museum, Llanberis, North
Wales; Reverend Father William Joseph Kuchinsky, Priest
of the Catholic Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston, WV;
Byron Dille’, bottle collector and historian; Robert Doares,
Porcelain Historian, Williamsburg, Virginia; and Dorothy
G. Hogan-Schofield, Curator Of Collections, Sandwich
Glass Museum.
To Dr. Sean Kingsley, Director of Wreck Watch
International, we are profoundly grateful for providing his
firm guidance, keen insight and editorial wisdom. A final
acknowledgement is in special memory of the former
Conservator Herbert Bump, who established precedents in
the early stages of the Republic project that Odyssey has
continued to foster and emulate.
Notes
1. See Louisiana State Museum, Ante-bellum Louisiana:
Urban Life: http://lsm.crt.state.la.us/cabildo/cab9a.htm.
2. Yellow Fever Deaths in New Orleans, 1817-1905
(Louisiana Division New Orleans Public Library):
http://nutrias.org/facts/feverdeaths.htm.
3. A Brief History of the Denby Pottery: www.clariceware.
com/The%20Denby%20Pottery%20story.htm;
A History of Denby: www.denby.com.au/denby_history.
html.
4. Glenn Poch’s Bottle Collecting Newsletter 19 (1997):
www.antiquebottles.com/poch/19.html.
5. See: http://dalessandris.net/lkpostalhistory.aspx.
6. For L.T. Piver’s perfumes, see: http://www.piver.com/
EN/historique.htm.
7. Reconstruction: the Second Civil War. American
Experience Mini Documentary: www.pbs.org/wgbh/
amex/reconstruction/schools/ps_highgate.html.
8. See: http://www.thepotteries.org/types/ironstone.htm.
9. See: http://www.thepotteries.org/a_z.htm.
10.An American Time Capsule: Three Centuries of Broad sides and Other Printed Ephemera, Testimonials in
Relation to the Merits of Van Buskirk’s Fragrant
Sozodont; for Cleansing and Preserving the Teeth,
Hardening the Gums… (Printed Ephemera Collection,
Portfolio 122, Folder 35, New York, 1859).
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Odyssey Papers 6 - Odyssey Marine Exploration

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